1. Open the Settings application on the iPhone’s home screen.
2. Open Mail, Contacts, Calendars.
3. Tap Add Account….
4. Select Microsoft Exchange.
       
5. In the Email field, enter your full Gmail address.
6. Leave the Domain field blank.
7. Enter your full Google Apps email address as the Username.
8. Enter your Google Apps password as the Password.
9. Tap Next at the top of your screen. (Choose Cancel if the Unable to Verify Certificate dialog appears.)
10. When the new Server field appears, enter m.google.com.
11. Press Next at the top of your screen again.
      
12. Select the Google Apps services (Mail, Calendar, and Contacts) you want to sync.
13. Unless you want to delete all the existing Contacts and Calendars on your phone, select the Keep on my iPhone option when prompted. This will also allow you to keep syncing with your computer via iTunes.
    

    To sync only the My Contacts group, you must choose to Delete Existing Contacts during the Google Sync install when prompted. If you choose to keep existing contacts, it will sync the contents of the “All Contacts” group instead. If there are no contacts on your phone, the latter will happen — the contents of your All Contacts group will be synced.

      

That’s it! You can now access Google Apps from your iPhone. If you have Push enabled on the phone, synchronization starts automatically. You can also just open the Mail, Calendar or Contacts app and wait a few seconds to start a sync.

[All content above was copy/pasted/stolen from the Google Apps setup wizard.]

(See, the Windows file system doesn’t allow question marks, slashes, quotes or spaces-at-the-end-of-folder-names whereas other operating systems do.)

In order to correct this issue, I called upon my brain to remember a few things from the Windows 95 days.

If you were a nerd back then, you might recall being super-excited that Windows finally began allowing long file names. What a marvel! What progress!

You might also recall that when you went into DOS, all your lovely file names — such as “omg this is a long file name” or “this is really amazing” — were butchered into “omgthi~1″ and  ”thisis~1″

It made browsing and file-copying a serious hassle. 17 years later, I STILL have files on my drive with these pooched names…

Anyway, in order to delete a folder with an invalid name, you’ll need to do a little old-school hacking.

HOORAY!

Oh, how easily-excited we used to be. Oh, how “visiting a website” was a fun, cinematic experience. Oh, how long our attention spans were back then — a full THIRTY seconds!

It was a pretty magical time. It didn’t matter if a website actually had content, if it had presentation it got people coming back again and again. I never cared what the text of Eye4U’s website actually said. I went there for the sweet music and the flying shapes. Honestly, I’ve been there dozens of times and don’t think I’ve ever read the content once.

Alright, maybe that’s a bit silly. I do actually like the “new” idea of websites with content. I also used to love going to a website and having a sense of wonder. To me, Flash wasn’t just about delivering content. It was about making it cool, and fun, and interesting.

It’s been a long, long time since I felt that sense of wonder.

“Mr. Dude, what does the death of Flash mean to you?”

Well, this is the future I imagine:

• The eventual end of fun, wild, random, crazy and pointless websites
• Less emphasis on presentation
• More emphasis on the content itself
• Back to smaller boxes for smaller screens (like on smart phones)
• Concise content designed for adolescent attention spans
• Websites designed to give maximum information to people in an extreme rush

Yes, it’s progress. But is it in the direction we want? Stay tuned!

To make a long story short: financial struggles, an identity crisis, deconstruction, reconstruction, and at last a renewed purpose.

I gotta tell ya, few things will cause a freelancer to question his way of life more than a hurtin’ bank account and an imminent rent payment. Had the dream finally ended? Had I beaten the dead horse of my 1999 fame for the last time? Did I have any tricks left? Who the heck was I?

As far back as I can remember, my favorite way to learn about things has been to take them apart. This year, I had plenty of time… so I did just that.

And I learned so much.

I learned that my business was designed around my personal needs, not around helping people.

I learned that my website tried squeezing people into categories, when everybody wanted to be unique.

And I learned that people wanted a “web designer” as much as they wanted a kick in the pants. What they needed was an easier life.

At that point, I decided to stop being a “web designer” and became someone who made peoples’ lives easier. I stopped being a money-grubber and started being a people-helper. I shifted my focus towards “maintaining relationships” and away from “trying to get every penny I can from clients because they’ll be gone in a month.” (Side note: that’s a really lousy way to do business. If you want to kill your business, run it like that.)

So far, it’s been awesome. My clients are happier, they send me more business, and I enjoy the projects I do a whole lot more. Once it stops being about survival and becomes about creating support, life has a whole new meaning.

Every year, I think about sending one back.

This year, I finally did it! Hooray!

Music by the lovely and talented Alan Brown (website coming soon).

Apparently they received twice as many toys this year than they usually do, but I’m definitely not taking credit for that.

This video was displayed on indoor digital signage where the average spot is 10-15 seconds.

This video was displayed on indoor digital signage where the average spot is 10-15 seconds.

Graphic design, script, audio: iDiz Incorporated

Animation: XDude